Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Kwiz 15 Minutes

Okay, sticking with the uniform number theme, what number did Yaz wear in Red Sox camp in spring training 1960? (It wasn't 8.)

Update, 3/10: AJM got it. 45. In a show about the Red Sox (I forget what it's called but it goes through the team's greatest players and it's shown on MLB Network sometimes), Yaz is shown in 1960 spring training with Ted Williams coaching him. He's got #45 on his back. I took a pic of the TV, but it's pretty hard to tell from my shot. I did some research, and came across an article which mentions it, titled "Ted Says Yastrzemski Is 'Cinch to Make It'." You have to pay for the article, which I didn't, but the first line is "One of the most repeated questions among visitors to Scottsdale Stadium is: "Who's that number 45?""

Actually, I'll just post it. On the show you can really tell it's 45. (And that it's Yaz.)

Still trying to find out, but Yaz played for the Minneapolis Millers in 1960, so he would most likely have worn the number he was going to wear with them. Still trying to find that info, but this could be considered a nice hint to those out there

Well, sometimes you just gotta grunt it out until you get the right answer...kinda like algebra.

There were several places that had the pic of Yaz and Teddy Ballgame at spring training in '61, both online and in the Yaz book that came out a year or so ago, but none taken in '60. So I went to this page:http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=1960&t=BOSand just went down the list of numbers that were not issued to veterans on the roster that season, starting with #13. Interestingly, 45 was never issued to a player for the regular season prior to the unfortunately named Dick Pole in 1973...it had been given to a coach in '52-'54. Hopefully they retire it for Pedro someday.

I just found one of those '61 shots, and he has an 8 on his bat handle. So it appears he wore 45 in spring '60 with the Sox, then came back and wore 8 starting in spring '61, and going into his first season with the big club.

Ed Sadowski wore 8 in '60, which is probably why Yaz had to have a non-8 number.

Sadowski got taken by the Angels in the expansion draft at the end of that '60 season, then was traded to the Braves, where he played the final three games of their first season in Atlanta...wearing number 45.

This was a pretty awesome quiz. I looked through all the newspapers Brown has online access to for that time period and turned up nothing. The CS Monitor headline is actually a site I saw, but after looking at how the Boston Newspapers were still pay-only I gave up there too. I was about 2 days away from blowing off lab and heading over to the library to read the Globe on micro-fish. Well done!